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Riyadh Puts Israeli And U.S. Peace Intentions To Test
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Prince
Abdullah’s “normalization” offer: a test to U.S. & Israeli
peace resolve. |
RIYADH,
Feb. 19 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Saudi
Arabia's initiative toward normalizing ties with Israel has put to the test
Israel’s and the U.S.’s resolve to make peace in the Middle East, newspapers
said Tuesday.
"The
Saudi initiative
tests the U.S. administration's determination to sponsor peace in the region and
persuade its friends in Israel to sue for a just peace based on the
implementation of U.N. resolutions," wrote the Saudi daily newspaper, Okaz.
The
Saudi overture came
from Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, who offered "full normalization
of relations" with Israel in exchange for "full withdrawal from all
the occupied territories, in accord with U.N. resolutions, including in
Jerusalem."
Abdullah, the kingdom's de facto ruler, told The New York Times in remarks
published Sunday, February 17, that he had intended to make the proposal during
the Arab summit slated for late March in Beirut, but changed his mind when
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stepped up his "oppression".
More
than 1,230 people, mostly Palestinians, have been killed in Palestinian-Israeli
violence since the Intifada started in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in September
2000.
"This objective approach is intended to achieve a breakthrough toward
peace, and it is also an invitation to influential international sides to join a
realistic endeavor" to achieve peace, said Al-Jazira, another Saudi
daily newspaper.
The
paper said the initiative had come just in time to save the Middle East from
sliding toward "all-out war" due to the Arab world's dismay over the
violence in the Palestinian territories.
Al-Nadwa
said Abdullah's proposal could greatly help resolve the conflict between the
Arabs and Israel if the latter took it seriously.
"The
proposal, which is based on U.N. resolutions and the land-for-peace principle
upheld at the [1991] Madrid conference, confronts Israel with a choice between
peace and lack of it," the paper said.
Abdullah's
offer is "a clear message to the Israeli people that ending the occupation
of Arab territories and recognizing the Palestinian people's legitimate rights
constitute the basis of a just and comprehensive peace," Al-Bilad said.
In contrast, Sharon's "aggressive policy and organized terrorism" are
robbing the Israelis of security and the Palestinians of their rights, the paper
added.
The London-based Saudi
daily Asharq al-Awsat said that amid "stagnation in the Arab and Israeli
positions," the initiative offered a political way out of the cycle of
violence.
"It
opens a road that had hitherto remained closed" and provides the upcoming
Arab summit with a "new approach" to promoting a settlement in the
Middle East, the paper wrote in a lead article.
This "bold and rational idea" not only "broke the impasse in the
Arab-Israeli conflict," but also provided a way out for "the world
powers, primarily the United States, who no longer have anything to offer apart
from the Mitchell report and the Tenet plan," Asharq al-Awsat said.
Arab
satellite TV stations have pounced on the offer, running interviews with New
York Times journalist Thomas Friedman to whom the Saudi crown prince revealed
the proposal.
For Talal Salman, chief editor of Lebanon's pro-Syrian newspaper As-Safir,
Prince Abdullah's remarks have already given away the main thrust of the final
statement to be issued by Arab heads of state at their summit.
"It's
a clear Arab message," said Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa.
"This message means that it is Israeli obstacles which are delaying peace
in the Middle East and that we must remove these obstacles if we want to achieve
peace," Mussa told reporters.
He said the "Arabs are ready to make peace, but a peace based on concluded
agreements and one leading to a Palestinian state and an Israeli withdrawal from
all Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese territory."
Mussa said the
"Arabs are ready to make peace, but a peace based on concluded agreements
and one leading to a Palestinian state and an Israeli withdrawal from all
Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese territory."
It
was unacceptable to ask the Palestinians to stop the violence without requiring
Israel to do the same, said the Arab League chief.
"A
halt to violence must come from both sides and there must be an Israeli
withdrawal from all the occupied territories and a lifting of the siege imposed
on them," he said.
Meanwhile, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat backed Monday, February 18,
Abdullah’s proposal of land-for-normalization with Israel.
"The
important statements of the Saudi crown prince ... reinforce and represent a
support for peace efforts," Arafat told the Palestinian news agency WAFA.
He
underlined the support of his Palestinian Authority for "the positions
adopted by Saudi Arabia ... and of Arab leaders in favor of peace."
Friedman,
whom many analysts in Egypt see as a political figure, himself proposed in a
February 6 article that the Arabs declare at their summit a joint recognition of
Israel in return for the return of occupied lands. Such proposals have been
around for a long time in the Arab world.
But
now, coming from Saudi
Arabia, it shows "high-level political contacts are underway between
Washington and Riyadh ahead of the Arab summit," said Emad Gad, a
researcher with Egyptian daily newspaper Al-Ahram's Political and Strategic
Studies Center.
"The words of Prince Abdullah were well weighted, the timing of publication
chosen ahead of the Arab summit and this could be linked to contacts over the
Palestinian president's participation" in the summit, he said.
Any Arab recognition of Israel must follow "a detailed Israeli-Palestinian
peace accord to make sure that recognition is not granted for nothing,"
insisted Makram Mohammed Ahmed of the Egyptian government paper Al-Mussawar.
But Al-Ahram newspaper's Ahmed Salama charged that Friedman was "trying to
dupe the Arabs."
"The
problem is not that the Arabs refuse to normalize ties with or to recognize
Israel, but the Jewish state's refusal to recognize the rights of the
Palestinians or to pull out of the territories," he said.
Egypt,
Jordan and Mauritania have diplomatic relations with Israel, while several other
Arab states embarked on a normalization after the 1991 launch of the Middle East
peace process, but such steps have been reversed.
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